


How to steal a Jaeger

by IntoTheDrift (medras)



Series: Drift Together (Don't Drift Apart) [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Multi, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim (2013), Pre-Poly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-09 19:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12283359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medras/pseuds/IntoTheDrift
Summary: Five classmates who barely know each other get detention, find an abandoned Jaeger, and save their town. But this is only the beginning.OR Five teenagers steal a Jaeger.





	1. Chapter 1

“Taylor?”

* * *

Zack takes a breath of the cool mountain air from the front steps of his house.

The morning is quiet despite the nearby military base. It’s been quieter and quieter since the big failed Jaeger experiment that almost bankrupted their town. Now it was downright peaceful on the mountain.

His phone trills in his pocket, startling him.

5 minute warning.

“Shit,” he says to the quarry.

* * *

“Zachary Taylor.” the teacher repeats, not even bothering to look up to see if the student had appeared,

* * *

Zack leaves a trail of dust and displaced pebbles in his wake. He ducks under the peeled up fence that guards the quarry side of the military base. It’s worth the risk to save a few minutes. It’s not like there’s ever anyone guarding an abandoned rock hole.

“Hey!”

And that’s just his luck, isn’t it? He adjusts his backpack to fit tighter to his back and runs on.

“Sorry, man!” Zack yells back,

* * *

The students alternate between sighing, rolling their eyes, and continuing their pre-class dozing. They’ve come to relish this extra 5 minutes of non-class in the morning.

* * *

The chain link clatters loud enough he’s sure the rest of the base can hear it. He tumbles over the top, laughing triumphantly even as he lands hard on his back.

Then the guard is yelling again and Zack leaps to his feet, sprinting off again.

He quickly rounds the corner and the high school is in sight. He’s totally going to make it on time for once.

* * *

“Ah, right on time.”

“Finally!” Zack crows with the last of his breath, “The shortcut worked!”

“No, I meant you’re right on time for second period. When you normally get to school.”

Zack finally recognizes that Billy Cranston is coming out of their History class and not going in, as Zack was about to.

Zack curses and Billy blinks at him,

“Hey, uh, don’t worry, man. You’ve got a few more weeks to figure it out before it’s summer break!” he supplies cheerfully as Zack mopes off to his second period.

* * *

Billy shakes his head as he makes his way to second period. How Zackary Taylor manages to have such a poor grasp of time is beyond him.

Billy slides into a seat at the long table. The other students shuffle away, shooting him indecipherable looks as they do. It’s easy to shrug them off. It’s not like they were ever nice to him in the past, anyway.

“Billy. What is that?” the teacher asks from over his shoulder,

“It’s my assignment, Mr. Nakagawa.” Billy indicates the tangle of wires and scrap metal sitting on the table, grinning up at his teacher as if enough enthusiasm will distract the art teacher from his current project,

Behind him, he hears a snicker.

“Oh no, not in my class. Not again,” The art teacher deftly sweeps Billy’s project away despite his brief protest, “Try again, Mr. Cranston. This time with the materials provided in class.”

Billy frowns, considers taking his back-up project out of his bag, but a quick glance at Nakagawa confirms the teacher is watching him like a hawk.

“Hey, it’s not so bad,” Jason Scott says, sidling up next to him at the supplies table, “You don’t have to learn anything for an hour.”

Billy shoots him a scathing look, “That’s the whole problem.”

Jason holds up both hands in front of him as if to ward off Billy’s sentiment, “Whatever floats your boat, but you know we’re, like, not supposed to like being in high school, right?” he chuckles,

Billy finds his lips curling upwards despite himself, “I think I’ve got that part down, at least,” he retreats back to the table with his supplies after that, missing the look that passes over Jason’s face.

* * *

Once Jason is away from the fun un-learning of art class and into the boredom of English Lit, he finds himself revisiting what Billy had said to him earlier. He didn't get the impression the other teen was joking… But Jason had always assumed Billy had things pretty easy in terms of high school. He didn’t have many friends, sure, but he also didn’t have the hopes of an entire town riding on his future. Or all of the extremely awkward crushes from an unending stream of underclassmen. Jason grimaces.

He glances around the classroom, looking at the other students in a new light. Was Barry really as stupid as he seemed? Jason squints, considering this new idea. At that moment, he witnesses Barry open a book upside down and proceed to not realize it was upside down for a full minute. So, that was a no.

He just needs a better example. Like the new girl. She sits right in front of him, always seems angry and too cool for school. But maybe that’s just a front to cover how lonely she is and—

“Ever hear of 'keep your eyes to yourself’?” she hisses, looking at him over her shoulder,

Jason jumps, “How did you—?”

“Scott!” the teacher zeroes in on him.

Trini smirks as she slowly turns to pretend like she wasn’t the one who instigated this.

* * *

Trini smirks into the book she’s pretending to study as their teacher chews out Jason for a good five minutes. Serves him right for staring at her like a creep. The teacher clearly has it in for the kid, probably thinks he’s had it way too easy, and Trini wonders if she can bait him and their teacher into another time wasting talking-to tomorrow.

By the time she’s made it to her next period—Senior Exobiology— she thinks she has a pretty good system worked out and is ready to try it the next time she needs five to fifteen minutes of me-time in the middle of Lit.

Still, she notices her mood dropping considerably as she settles into her assigned seat. It gives her a clear view of Kimberly Hart, which she was super psyched about when the year started, but with the year almost through, it seems like its true function is to illustrate how much the other girl will never even know she exists. When the teacher announces that they’re starting another lab today, Trini glances at the empty seat her usual partner’s left her and frowns. While she’s scoping out the back of the class to see if someone is miraculously without a partner, someone slides into the open seat. She gears up to tell whatever greasy teenaged boy dared to enter her space when all of the enmity drains out of her. Kimberly Hart is sitting at her table.

“My partner’s out today, too, so I figured us pairing up makes the most sense.” she states simply,

As if this wasn’t about to be either the most exciting or disappointing thing to happen to Trini since her family moved to Angel Grove.

“Um… sure, I mean, yeah that makes sense, I guess…” Trini manages to get out.

She spends the rest of the period resolutely not looking at the other teen because she can’t afford to get distracted in the only class she’s really doing well in.

* * *

Kim clears out of exobiology as fast as she's ever managed. Not that she's looking forward to her calculus class- the class so boring it was worth a week of gossip if their teacher copied an equation incorrectly- but right now she could use any distraction. She’d paired up with Trini last period thinking it would be a pretty good chance to finally get to know the “new girl” (who’d already been in their school for almost two years now), but she seemed to prefer ignoring Kim. Kim feels the hot bubble of fury start up low in her stomach and uses it to shoulder past several kids blocking her way. There’s definitely no reason for her to be upset with Trini. It’s not like Kim, cheerleader Kim, is hurting for friends. But… that’s not a reason to ignore someone, right?

Kim’s so busy thinking about possible slights she could’ve committed in the past two years to alienate Trini and can’t even think of more than two occasions when they’ve interacted, she barrels straight into Billy Cranston. Speaking of misfits, she thinks to herself before bending quickly to help him,

“Sorry, sorry! I was—,” she isn’t really sure what she had been doing, “I didn’t see you there…”

Billy doesn’t even look up, focused fully on gathering the scattered pencils and… electrical wire? Nails?

“What the hell, Hart?!”

And that voice is shockingly easy to identify despite the fact it had spent most of the last period keeping her in chilly silence.

“I—” Kim starts before yet another voice cuts in,

“Come on, new girl, she clearly didn’t mean it,” Jason insists,

Kim glares at him but he’s busy eyeing Trini nervously as she pointedly looks him up and down, a demeaning smirk on her lips.

“You can totally take him, crazy girl! Fight! Fight!”

They all turn on the new voice,

“Seriously, dude?”

“Zack Taylor, what the fuck.”

“Really, though?”

“Cranston, are those nails…again? What have I told you about that.” Kim grimaces as their overzealous vice principal draws herself up next to the group, “All five of you, you’re coming with me.”

“But nothing even caught on fire this time,” Billy insists to no avail, looking helplessly at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much to say about this besides it took way too long to write XD It is finished, though, and I'll be posting one chapter a day for a week.
> 
> Come drop me a line on [tumblr](https://closetedboggart.tumblr.com/) or leave me a comment :) I have a ton of weird ideas about this fusion I'd love to chat about!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're all here to see a Jaeger, right? Let's see a Jaeger.
> 
> (but also if you're here for a super cute group of teens, they're here too)

Kim is _livid_ she has to wake up at 6am on a weekend.

Well, as livid as a teenager who is exhausted from waking up way too early for the _sixth_ day in a row can be, anyway. But at least she has a backpack full of homework. With any luck, she’ll actually end up with more free time this weekend. And also every weekend for the next two months. Apparently Billy being Angel Grove’s Most Wanted and “attempting to start a riot”- as the vice principal had put it- were compounding offenses, so now they had double the amount of Saturday detentions. At least Kim had managed to talk her parents out of grounding her on top of all that.

She enters the room cautiously, the narrow stairs taking a large part of her concentration without caffeine. All of the detention stereotypes are here: stoner kid, goth teen with pyro tendencies, overzealous theater kid, and the class bully. Kim steers well clear of the bully and despite his leering at her as she goes by, he doesn’t say anything. Billy, Trini, and Jason filter in as the clock ticks closer to their detention starting at 8. Billy sets up an array of pencils and markers and begins on his work right away. Jason is lounging with his feet on the desk and Trini is hunched over a coffee. Kim wonders why she hadn’t thought of that. She’s about to follow Billy’s example when she hears Jason hiss a curse under his breath.

She perks up, scanning the room automatically, hoping for some ex-girlfriend drama to start her detention off right.

Instead it’s a teacher— or an adult, at least— who sweeps into the room, dressed head to toe in sharp grey PPDC fatigues. Her movements are sharp, almost alien, but Kim’s met other soldiers from the base that act much the same.

“Oh boy…” Jason grimaces,

“Seriously, _what_ are you on about?” Trini hisses under her breath,

Billy leans closer to their conversation but pointedly does not lift his eyes from his work.

“That’s General Repulsa,” Jason grimaces,

She fixes him with a cold, practiced smile that seems to cut through the room, “Rita will be fine, Mr. Scott,”

Jason replies with a curt, military nod. Kim raises her eyebrow at him.

“Well, since they assigned me detention on an on-duty day, we’re going to be getting… creative.” Rita’s teeth almost seem sharp in her smile, “Grab your bags, children, we’re going on a field trip!” she clasps her hands in front of her, looking entirely too angelic to be comfortable.

Even the normally thick-headed bully treats this with trepidation.

* * *

Once they’re marched over to the base, Rita is quick to dole out their tasks and most of them find themselves assigned to yard work, which Trini definitely has enough of at home, thank you.

Jason, golden boy he apparently is, is assigned to babysit their group on the far side of the base while Rita looks after the more obvious-looking troublemakers in the front of the base. Trini and Zack end up raking up yard debris while Kim and Billy are teamed up repairing a fence that had let some large pest onto the base recently, according to one of the guards.

“What’re you figure Golden Boy is up to instead of all this busywork?” Zack voices,

Trini snorts at their apparent shared nickname.

“I’d kill to get to poke around in that base… even just once.” Billy laments,

“Well that settles it,” Jason pipes up, suddenly no longer absorbed in his phone, “This is boring as fuck and I’d rather not risk Billy trying to kill me.”

He hops off of his perch on top of the fence and starts towards the base, pausing when he realizes they’re all just staring at him, “Are you guys really that dedicated to cleaning up this dump?” he smiles his patented Golden Boy smile at them,

“You better not be pulling my leg right now,” Billy half-whispers,

But his eyes are the size of dinner plates and he’s trembling hard enough to fall over at the slightest wind so any threat is drained out of his statement.

“I mean, you could come with me or not but the guards should be changing over in,” he pauses to look at the large, analog watch on his wrist— and seriously, what kind of high schooler wears a watch? Trini asks herself— before continuing, “Two minutes so we should really get moving.”

Zack is already giggling madly, “Oh _hell_ yes!”

Trini and Kimberly trade a look before following Jason and the other boys through the unlabeled door. Billy is practically floating alongside Jason, muttering half-whispered questions at the other boy as Jason tries to get him to _please_ sush. Zack is gaping openly at the maze-like interior of the base. Trini is constantly glancing back the way they came, waiting for some sort of trap to spring and Kim glances nervously between all of them, confusion and concern plain on her face.

After minutes of sneaking through darkened corridors, their steps begin to echo. Billy is finally quiet. Possibly because his jaw is on the dusty ground. Trini and Kim fit into the spaces between the boys, following their eyes up and up and up.

Everyone has seen the Jaegers. Their generation has been raised on them. By them. But all the TV broadcasts and propaganda movies can’t prepare you for standing in the same room as a several-stories-tall mech.

This Jaeger looks state of the art: smooth lines and curves all curling around a swirling blue center that almost looks like a galaxy liquified. The swimming light it emits makes the floor feel unsteady under Trini’s feet.

“I’m not sure about the yellow,” Zack breaks the silence, gesturing vaguely to the midsection of the Jaeger,

“Are you kidding?” Jason turns on Zack, “that’s what you’re gonna say?”

“Yeah,” Trini sneers, “Yellow is awesome. And besides, it goes really well with black,” she flicks the arm of his black jean jacket,

“How are you two talking about _color-coordinating_ when there’s a like top-top-secret giant robot prototype in the room?” Jason practically scolds,

“ _I_ can’t believe you’d overlook the unique joint systems! It’s almost as if they were designed to completely detach!” Billy enthuses at them, “The range of motion that must get…”

Jason nods enthusiastically and points to Billy, indicating they should follow Billy’s lead.

Trini snorts. Then, “Hey… do you think we could touch them?”

Billy brings up a finger to his pursed lips, visibly considering, “Could or should?”

“Oh my god,” Jason mutters under his breath.

Kim grins, bouncing on her toes.

“I _knew_ I liked you, crazy girl!” Zack declares,

Trini is torn between rolling her eyes and snorting derisively, but she’s interrupted by Zack taking off before she can decide on one or the other. She thinks she hears Jason shouting “Wait!” or “No!” but she’s already past him, laughing as she chases the boy in black. Kim shouts a laugh as she bolts after them, taking off at the same time as Billy, who looks equally elated and like he needs to warn them about dangerous components. Jason, now alone, looks harried. By the time they’re halfway across the room, he’s chasing them, breathless from laughter.

Kim, apparently the most in shape, touches one leg and Zack touches the opposite one shortly behind her. Billy is circling the same leg, and Trini grins at Kim as she also pets the Jaeger’s shin.

“It’s all textured and stuff!” Trini exclaims,

“It looks smooth from further away,” Kim nods,

“Look! The service access!” Billy shouts from the other leg, pointing up the back of the Jaeger’s legs,

Jason comes up a bit short, staring at the Jaeger’s height from up close. Then, as if mesmerised, he touches the Jaeger without ever looking away from its head at the top of the hangar.

At his ghost of a touch, the mech lights up, servos and pistons priming audibly. As Trini pulls her hand away, she feels a static shock between her and the Jaeger. Except, more on the scale of a Jaeger. She curses and shakes out her hand— her whole _arm_ — and wonders if this is some sort of defense mechanism.

“What did you _do?!_ ” Billy shouts, accusatory,

“Me? I barely touched it!” Jason flails away from the now-active Jaeger,

“Well, as much fun as this was, I think we’d better clear out of here before anyone decides to come check on this thing,” Zack says while flexing his hand,

“Probably not the best idea to get court-martialed before graduation,” Jason agrees,

“Or worse,” Trini giggles, “Another Rita detention.”

* * *

As the teens wander off, they miss the Jaeger slowly returning dormant, as if what little energy it’d had was following those kids out of the hangar. Rita’s fingers tighten around the maintenance catwalk’s railing. With the low lights in this normally-abandoned hangar, she knew it was the perfect spot to observe without in turn being observed. She hadn’t known what had drawn her back into the room with her greatest failed experiment, but the occasion had made itself clear. Her lips tighten over her teeth in a snarl as she thinks about those five teens activating _her_ work. The final piece. Was it youthful exuberance or the lack of a severed drift partner? Either way, it was something she couldn’t provide to the Jaeger.

She turns on her heel from the railing, walking with purpose back to her lab. If the Jaeger was going to start responding to people, her plans would just have to accelerate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 is getting posted tomorrow!
> 
> Comments and kudos are always awesome :)


	3. Chapter 3

Call it the bond of a shared secret. Or shared bucking-of-authority-that-led-to-you-and-your-now-friends-to-accidentally-turn-on-a-Jaegar. But either way, after they escape detention Saturday morning, they’re texting by Sunday morning and hanging out after school on Monday.

* * *

“Hm. Your only preferences seem to be for physical activities…” Billy licks his lips in what Jason can only interpret as a nervous tic,

Jason blinks because _phrasing_ , but says “Alright. Meet halfway, what sports games do you have?”

Jason is swept up in the luminous smile Billy gives him. The list Billy is currently rattling off is lost to him, though. Instead, he’s caught up in the thought that apparently no one had ever thought to try and compromise with Billy before. Jason is roused by a controller being dropped unceremoniously into his lap.

“You were zoned out so I just picked one.” Billy sits down in the adjacent armchair to the couch Jason’s on,

“FIFA? Sure. Not into couches?”

Billy shrugs jerky and uncomfortable, “I don’t like… you know… hugging.”

“Alright, but that’s not really a couch thing. We can just… sit. And not touch. And play games,” Jason jiggles the controller for effect, “Um. No pressure, though. I’d rather sit and play games.”

Billy scrunches up his face as if Jason just suggested they start drinking from his mother’s alcohol stash. Or skip class. Or any of the other things Jason would do with other friends who aren’t Billy.

He grits his teeth against the idea that he hasn’t been a particularly understanding friend in the past.

* * *

By Friday, their parents are asking when their new friends will be coming over for dinner or staying the night (mostly in Kim’s case on that last one).

* * *

Kim and Billy do homework together because no one else wants to do it with them. Until they corral everyone into one room and force them to get it all done for their own good.

* * *

Kim and Trini go to the Krispy Kreme together to drink coffee and fight over pastries because they agree Jason is freak who doesn’t like coffee, Zack is insufferable when given caffeine, and Billy is banned from the store for sugar-related crimes.

They learn they have the same taste in pastries and movies.

* * *

Zack goes running with Trini in the morning, Kim after school, and Jason every night.

It starts the week after their fateful run-in at the base. Zack wakes up ahead of the sun, ahead of his mother, and runs. The cool mountain air after the sweltering nights they’re having in early June is a lifeline. Mornings in the mountains are when he used to see Trini up doing yoga on the overlook, usually after his mom’d had a bad night. Then one day Trini joins him on his jog. And of course Crazy Girl turns it into a race,

“You’re up early for the chronically truant,” Trini teases as she falls into step with him,

“Oh, so you’ve been watching me too,” Zack crooks an eyebrow at her, smirking,

Trini rolls her eyes but softens the gesture slightly with a sharp grin, “You can watch my dust!” is all she says before she takes off at what Zack considers super-human speeds.

 

After school, Zack finds Kim. If he stopped to think about it, he’d realize he had no reason to know where Kim would be, but he finds her nonetheless.

She laughs and waves when she sees him and Zack is still a bit awed by the time she disentangles herself from her skeptical-looking cheerleader friends to come hang on the fence to talk to him.

“What are you doing here?” she grins,

Zack brings up one hand to scrub at the prickly hairs on the back of his head, “Um, not really sure? I kinda just… ended up here?”

Kim nods seriously, “Well… if you don’t have anything else to do, want to run laps with me? I kinda missed the beginning of practice so...” She shrugs one shoulder,

Zack grins, already working on scaling the fence, “My mom always says I’m way too hyper.”

“ _Just_ your mom?” Kim quips,

“Wow, aren’t you cheerleaders supposed to be nice?” Zack holds his hand over his heart, feigning injury,

Kim shrugs one shoulder, smirking.

The clanging of the chain link turns the rest of the cheer squad to the pair. Most of the girls look positively scandalized, though whether that’s about him climbing a fence when the gate is 5 feet away or Kim hanging out with him, he can’t tell. Not that she notices as she simply steps out of the way of Zack’s landing.

“Should we, uh, worry about them revolting or something? Killing me in my sleep?” he asks after their third or fourth lap around the field,

Kim barely turns her head towards the cheerleaders, “What, you couldn’t take a bunch of girls breaking into your room in the middle of the night?” she teases,

“I’ve seen girl fights. You guys are _vicious_ ,” Zack grimaces, “I would not want to get mixed up in that.”

Kim grins violently. Zack almost trips over his own feet.

 

 _You up?_ Is the text Zack gets at near one in the morning. From Jason. _On a school night._ To think, the golden boy wasn’t the pillar of responsibility Angel Grove made him out to be.

 _How’d you know?_ Zack taps out,

 _Just a feeling._ Then a few seconds later: _Want to come out?_

So Zack is climbing out his window at one in the morning in the pitch black to go meet his new friend. Barely even friend, maybe. Surprisingly, he’s never had much occasion to sneak out, especially not to meet _friends_ and he finds his stomach is stuck somewhere in his throat.

When Zack finds Jason around the periphery of the downtown area of Angel Grove, he takes a few moments to process the other boy’s slack shirt and athletic shoes,

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Zack sighs,

“What?” Jason asks, totally unawares,

“You’re the third person today…” Zack gestures helplessly at Jason’s running shoes as he doubles over in silent laughter,

He’s almost shocked out of it by the feeling of Jason’s warm, large hand on his shoulder, but in the end it just makes the laughter higher and harder.

“Seriously, what?” Jason asks again, a lilt of laughter in his own voice,

“This morning it was Trini, then Kim after school and you… Is the middle of the night when you usually go running?” Zack asks once he can talk in coherent sentences,

Jason shrugs- at least Zack thinks it’s a shrug, it’s hard to tell in the dark, “Not really… I’m usually out like a light but tonight I have all this… energy,” he bounces up and down on his toes, as if to emphasize his point.

Half a thought bubbles into Zack’s consciousness. He’s familiar with that unbearable, unstoppable amount of energy that keeps you from doing anything else. It’s why he can’t sit through class and tends to avoid school like the plague. It also makes running three times in a day possible for him.

“Maybe…” Zack says as another thought takes over his head, “We just need to consolidate our running schedules.”

“Eh, I’m not really a morning person.” Jason grins as Zack realizes his friends are going to be the death of him.

* * *

Trini and Kim have sleepovers where there isn’t very much sleeping. Just talking. And sharing blankets.

“I asked Jason once,” Kim starts,

Trini looks at the girl sitting across from her, their legs tangled together under a handful of lap blankets scavenged from around the house. Somewhere, Trini feels this should make her wrinkle her nose or gag. Should feel the hot creep of jealousy into her stomach. Instead she feels a buzz there, like the hours before a test.

Trini grunts for Kim to continue,

“If you could run… just run and never come back, where would you go?” Kim smooths at a wrinkle in the blankets,

“Well, I probably wouldn’t leave my brothers with my parents,” Trini frowns slightly at the thought,

“Okay, if you _had_ to,” Kim amends,

A corner of Trini’s mouth crooks upwards, “Like if we were _fugitives?_ ” she stretches out the word like her brothers when they as if she has a _boyfriend_ ,

Kim nods,

“Alright… maybe somewhere cold. Iceland?”

Kim shivers, shaking her head no for effect,

“Giving the sheep the cold shoulder, huh?” Trini smirks, “Okay, less cold. Seattle?”

“You wouldn’t want to get away from the Pacific Breach? Like to live dangerously?”

“Geeze, you sure are picky for asking where _I_ would go if I ran away.” Trini jostles Kim’s legs from under the blankets, and the other teen snickers in response, “Sounds like… London, then.”

Kim’s silent for a few moments while Trini imagines what she would take from her room. How much she could fit into her backpack before bolting.

“I’d visit you in London.” Kim concludes.

Trini snorts a laugh, “Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

Billy has everyone over for movie nights.

“What’s the theme tonight, Billy, my man?” Jason flops onto the couch, immediately taking up the whole thing,

“My dude,” Zack adds to Jason’s greeting, following close behind Jason and knocking the other boy’s feet off of the couch to make room for himself.

Kim snickers at the pout Jason is giving Zack, but smiles at Billy. Trini high fives Billy as she walks in, then shoves Zack onto the floor.

He pouts at her as Billy says, “Old B-movies.”

“The Bee Movie?” Trini grins, “Did you guys see the one video where— “

“ _Yes_ ,” Kim rolls her eyes, “You’ve showed us like a dozen ‘Bee Movie but every time they say bee’ whatever happens videos. _Each_.”

Trini rolls her eyes back at the other girl,

“Bad old sci-fi movies.” Billy clarifies, “You know, Mystery Science Theater stuff. Except we get to make fun of these ourselves.”

“ _Mammoth_?” Zack points up at a file on the screen, “We should totally watch that one!”

Jason balks at the suggestion bodily, “On what planet do you pick an _elephant_ movie over a T-rex movie?” he scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest,

“First of all, it’s _a mammoth_. Second of all, it’s better when said quote-unquote T-rex movie is _Tammy and the T-Rex_. Right, Kimberly?” Zack sing-songs her name,

“You're both wrong,” Kim sidesteps, “You gotta stick to the real classics like _Rodan_.”

“Wait why is _10,000 B.C._ here?” Trini asks,

“Oh! That's actually for next week… That was meant to be _One Million Years B.C._ ,” Billy swaps the files to their correct locations, “There’s also a few giant robot movie because… duh. So what do we want to watch?”

“Robots!” the rest yell in unison,

Billy smiles as he watches his friends— and it a brings a jolt of warmth to his chest that he’s comfortable with that classification now— jostle for position on the couch. Billy waits for his inevitable position on the floor, unwilling to participate in their roughhousing.

“Come on!” Kim knocks him from his thoughts. She pats the space they’ve made for him on one side of the loveseat. Somehow there’s enough space for him to not touch unless he wants to, despite the ungraceful tangle of limbs the rest of them have engaged in. He slots himself into the space, thankful for the extra open space being on the arm allows him.

It also gives him the reach to hit the spacebar on his laptop and start their movie marathon.

* * *

Zack has a campfire ready for anyone who needs it. Complete with dubiously procured drinks and endless s’mores.

* * *

The fact that it was all so easy was probably more perturbing than the standard teenaged drama- the whirlwind of emotions that made everything so unstable.

* * *

* * *

It’s too quiet. Too small.

He’s used to the song being everywhere. Undulating and _bright_. It’s empty without it. It feels like dying all over again.

He feels too much. Thin skin wrapped too tight. His brain throbs, as if he could feel each neuron firing. As if it’s trying to escape. As if there’s something else in here with him.

The pain coalesces into a point. No. A word?

_Awake. Up. Awake._

Long deadened limbs shift. Water presses down. Presses everywhere. His mouth opens and _roars_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendship montage~
> 
> Come back tomorrow for chapter 4 :)
> 
> Comments and kudos are great. Following me on [tumblr](https://closetedboggart.tumblr.com/) is also pretty cool, probably.


	4. Chapter 4

The air is on fire around her.

A desk hangs in the air. _All_ of the desks are in the air.

Her gaze drifts to Jason as if through molasses. His chest is rising and falling rapidly and his eyes are wide with panic.

There's a humming, piercing sound filling the air between the desks and it takes her a moment to identify the Kaiju sirens. Desks crash down all around her. Jason and Kim bolt at the same time, slipping through the door one after the other.

Kim goes left, Jason goes right.

Zack is still at home and, from the hill, he can see the ripples in the water. The claw- golden and gleaming, unfairly beautiful- scraping the pier into the ocean. He can almost see the people, bobbing back to the surface, thrashing— or not— from here. He turns to his mother, small in her bed. She’s looking at him steadily, unshaken even as the rest of the small town is wracked with tremors.

He scoops her up as easily as… too easily, and pretends he can’t hear her telling him to leave her behind over the klaxon.

The ground is liquid under his feet. Rolling, roiling, crumbling. His brain supplies, unhelpfully, that sea legs are not a thing he’s known for.

“Billy!” someone yells,

But he can’t tell who because the school is still shaking and he’s sideways. On grass. He coughs dirt. His legs shake. The floor— the _ground_ shakes. Resonating. He finds his sea legs.

The car slides out of nowhere. Jason throws himself out of the way, landing badly on his leg.

It’s only supposed to be a block or two from school to the base. With each beat of the chopper blades in time with his heart, it takes ages. He sees the school crack behind him and the smoke drifting in from the town is acrid, coating his mouth and throat until it feels like he's not even breathing air anymore.

When he finally reaches it, the base is both deserted and crowded. With everyone at their assignments for Kaiju contact, there’s no one to guard the front door, no one patrolling the hallways. It’s all rushed purpose and he fits right in.

Even when he rounds the corner to what should be the abandoned Jaeger area, it’s bustling. Too many people dressed in pilot jumpsuits and none of them getting into the only Jaeger in the base.

He almost misses her, standing in the middle of the chaos. Only her stillness gives her away.

Trini stares at the armors hanging in a rack at the feet of the Jaeger. Her shoulder throbs in time with her pulse, bleeding steadily and she hasn’t stopped shaking in what feels like _hours_. Since this morning, it feels like. And it might still be this morning. She doesn’t know how she got back here. She’d meant to go _home_ , to grab her brothers and make sure they got to the evacuation point.

But instead she’s here, like the Jaeger had somehow pulled her here. She wonders if the others got the same crazy idea to come to the town’s only hope. Until a red shape coalesces beside her. Then black, blue, and pink. Jason grins down the line at them and Trini knows that they did.

“Ready, rangers?”

They grin back, wobbling and weary, and grab armor off the rack blindly. Clothing disappears, covered up or discarded, she can’t tell. The shouting behind them is slowly directing itself towards them. Trini’s helmet snaps into place. The pieces overlap and hang awkwardly as she ducks under and slides right and trips but doesn’t fall. Once she’s touching the Jaeger again, Trini realizes she has no idea how to get in one. Looking to her right, she sees Billy start to climb. Looking again, she can see the the small service ladders built into the geometry of the Jaeger and remembers Billy pointing them out when they were first here.

The gloves and boots are made to fit into the ladder, otherwise there’s no way she’d be able to hold on. She begins hauling herself up.

Below them, the shouts turn panicked suddenly as the word “Goldar” is repeated instead of “stop!” or “damn kids!”. Trini dares a glance down, and immediately regrets it for the woozy spin that loosens her grip on the ladder.

Just as quickly, there’s a too-large hand on her back pushing her back until she grips the rungs again. When she glances carefully down, she finds it’s Jason propping her up. He nods as if to say ‘don’t worry, I’ve got your back’. So she looks back to Billy, to find him looking down at them from the access point in the neck. Zack is almost to the shoulder and Kim is not far behind him, climbing with a speed that makes Trini’s shoulder twinge.

Together, they make it to the top, though.

Jason looks out around the polygonal head that seems to be the size of a cottage, and sees the Marshal corralling the other prospective pilots away from the launch area. Then he blinks because he _thinks_ he hears the Marshal order for a support team instead of security… But that can’t be right because why would the Marshal do that?

Zack slides down into the Jaeger head after Billy. The other boy is wandering around the cockpit with his jaw dragging behind him,

“I don’t suppose you know how to hotwire one of these?” Zack jokes,

And then Billy’s eyes snap suddenly to Zack’s, a feverish grin lighting his face.

“Oh boy,” Zack mutters mostly to himself, and then “Where do you need me?”

Billy gestures to one of the five contraptions suspended from the ceiling by some sort of hinge. Zack approaches it warily.

Billy notices his hesitation and steps in to explain, “It works best if you go in backwards,” Billy mimes stepping up and back and presumably into the holster formed by the device, “Your feet go in—”

“Like an elliptical.” Zack interrupts, eyeing the boot slots behind him,

“Okay,” Billy draws out the word as if trying to collect his thoughts and complaints underneath it, “That’s an incredibly simple way of describing the neural interfa—”

“Sorry! Sorry! Look, I’m getting in okay?” Zack shoves himself into the contraption to avoid a long lecture he certainly won’t understand,

There’s a half second of heart-stopping free fall as Zack falls into the elliptical-slash-neural-interfacing-something-or-other.

But then his back- his suit- clicks into place. The contraption shudders to life, pitching him back upright instead of uncomfortably reclined.

By the time Zack regains his equilibrium, Billy is pointing Kim to another of the contraptions and Zack hadn't even been aware of her coming in. Kim tips into the seat behind him like she’s been doing this her whole life and Zack suddenly remembers that she’s been a cheerleader for as long as he’s known her. Trini and Jason fall in next, and Billy takes the last remaining spot in the cockpit.

Far below them, a humming starts.

A cracking speaker makes them all jump, rocking them back and forth in the supports disconcertingly.

“I suppose congratulations are in order, rangers,” a flat male voice fills the cockpit and their helmets, giving it an artificial cast, “It seems your neural scans are good.”

The teens in the cockpit to trade befuddled glances, sending the unpowered drivers listing once again.

“Let’s hope you’re up to the task,” the voice finishes, a note of fatalistic humor creeping into it, “We’ll be supporting from the base as best we can. Hit it, Alpha.”

“Hit wha—” Zack starts before a second voice cuts in,

“ **Neural handshake initiated.** ” A female voice seems to imprint directly into their brains,

Five childhoods, families, piles of homework flash before him— one he only vaguely recognizes as his own, he realizes with a jolt.

Their thoughts come out a jumbled mess of ‘who/what/where/when/why/how?’ but at least they’re all on the same page.

“ **Neural handshake… complete.** ” The AI’s voice concludes, “ **Mega Zord online.** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, all! I was travelling most of the day and just now got back to civilization (read: wifi).
> 
> Comments and kudos are welcome! Also feel free to chat with me on [tumblr](https://closetedboggart.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Tomorrow brings us chapter 5 :O


	5. Chapter 5

The drift settles from an all-encompassing rush into a tingling phantom sensation of four other bodies.

 _Oh_ , five thoughts echo.

It’s not hard to know what to do next. They move at an awkward shuffle, at first. They’re all a bit out of sync, one of them would start moving with the other four slightly behind, the drift dragging them along.

“You know, this is the biggest Jaeger they ever built,” Billy points out, conversationally,

As if they aren’t currently driving multi-story tall robot mostly by force of will.

“And so they decided to have _five_ pilots?” Zack scoffs,

“She’s also the fastest.” Zordon supplies, “The first generation of Jaegers was too much of a load for one pilot, so we moved to two, then three… And I was the only one to ask ‘why not five?’”

Statistics of drift compatibility between five pilots race through Billy’s head and echo through theirs. Jason can’t fully comprehend the implications of the numbers but the general impression he gets is ‘extremely small’ with undercurrents of ‘impossible’.

Their first full step comes with an awkward giddy rush of swinging weightlessness and _coordination_.

One step.

Two steps.

 

They can feel the smirk building on Trini’s face and then the even more precarious balance of _running_.

“Where are we going again?” Jason asks,

“Look for the smoke,” Kim calls,

“There!” Billy yells, pointing and moving the Jaeger’s giant arm with his,

The Jaeger’s head turns to match theirs and Billy is right, the gold monster is visible on the horizon. They arc around widely, circling an entire neighborhood in a few strides. Shoulders lowered, they charge the kaiju, taking Goldar by surprise, shoving the bipedal monster back several paces. Goldar _shrieks_ and the shockwave of it almost topples their new-found balance.

“We’ve got to lead him away from the town!” Jason shouts over the din of servos,

“Right,” the rest answer, with the addition of a sardonic “boss” from Trini.

They grab Goldar by the shoulder and find the range of motion Billy had noticed earlier, Mega Zord’s hips rotating until they’re facing almost backwards to their legs and Goldar is thrown a lot harder than they’d predicted. He crashes into the pier, which ripples briefly before it explodes apart.

They need to take a few steps before they’re within grappling range of the kaiju again, and by that time Goldar is shaking his head and getting back up on all fours. It’s just a thrash, but the midnight blue wing of the kaiju catches the leg of their Jaeger. Half of them try to jump backwards, and half are already re-balancing after the hit. Too far back and too far forward, they stumble to a knee. The drift frays. An alarm is going off and vaguely some of them hear the same female AI issuing rapid warnings. Billy’s numbers on drift compatibility are racing through them like a wave— like _it was too good to be true_. The water around them shifts violently and, feeling curious-wary-determined, they look up to see Goldar up on all fours and muscles rippling for another attack.

They begin to straighten, not quite sure if they’re going backwards or forwards and end up locked in place instead. Goldar surges forward, smashing his head into their exposed knee. He’d aimed too low, for where their head was a moment ago. Still, the cockpit rocks from the force of it. Pain lances up their legs. It's hard to remind themselves that it's just the suits simulating an injury, simulating the damage to metal and electronics. Grabbing the opportunity— literally and figuratively— they grab Goldar’s head and ram it into their knee once again, gritting their teeth against the pain that follows.

And though they cannot truly feel it so much as see it and approximate from there: thick viscous fluid runs down their knee into the ocean. Warm and blue. The sickly sweet smell of it wafts its way past the air filters and into the cockpit.

The low wailing almost doesn’t register.

“Do you—?” Kim half-asks,

“I hear it.” Trini and Zack answer,

Billy is working away at a console between him and Jason that has gone unnoticed until now, “There,” he says, pointing at the now zoomed-in view screen,

“Oh _fuck_ ,” they say.

Twisting in the crushed remains of Goldar’s head is an emerald green pilot’s suit, its occupant screaming and beating against the ruined confines of the kaiju skull, but by no means attempting to escape.

“Is that…?” Zordon asks, voice wavering,

“No! NO!” the pilot screams, tearing off the helmet of the suit and throwing it farther into the ruined skull, “You came back once, just do it again!”

“Rita,” the general finishes with a depth of sadness to his voice that causes them to trade glances across the cockpit,

Rita, seemingly oblivious to them, dives back into the goop and comes up with fists full of wire and begins connecting them to the ports in the back of her suit.

Billy looks at them wide-eyed, “She wasn’t… Right? It shouldn’t be possible…”

His thoughts are going rapid-fire and they’re mostly used to not being able to keep up when he gets a hold of a thought, but now they’re dragged along with the strong current of kaiju biology, pilot-to-Jaeger interfaces, and something called the _Geiszler-Gottlieb Hypothesis_.

Something half-scream and half-growl emanates from the inside of the kaiju’s skull. At first they think it can't be Goldar, that it must be Rita still shouting desperately.

The first move he makes looks more like an abortive half-gesture. A twitch of a shrug. Then his torso is moving, neck lolling and dragging the rest of him down into the tide, like a marionette with half of its strings cut.

At first, they think she’s fallen into the ocean by accident. But, through the obscuring lens of the waves, they see that Goldar— that Rita— is pulling herself along the seabed towards the open sea. _Towards the Breach_.

“We can’t let her get to the Breach,” Jason states, translating Billy’s set of panicked future scenarios,

“ _Right_ ,” they say together, urgency pressing their frayed drift back into focus,

They take the ocean at a run, and it becomes clear very quickly that the slope here is a bit too steep for that. One leg gets stuck too far into the rocks of the ocean floor and only a quick rebalancing keeps them from totally ripping the limb off. Still, a warning burns into their hips, almost as severe as the pain in their knee. But even as they limp their way towards the kaiju, Rita reaches the edge of a drop off. She draws Goldar’s arms back then propels forward as if it was simply a diving block. Mega Zord follows close after, sinking like- like several hundred tons of metal- Billy provides.

“Technically Mega Zord is made out of a metal-plastic alloy…” Jason teases, “What? Did you think I found this Jaeger in an almost abandoned military base and didn’t research it at all?”

They’re still falling and the automatic headlights kick in, illuminating the rapidly darkening water around them. Goldar is drifting some distance above them as they sink. The advantages of being engineered for the ocean. They watch as Rita drive Goldar further and further, the lazy blue plume of blood marking his progress. He twitches, and at first they think it’s a late death throw, or a defense mechanism against the new mind taking over his corpse forcibly. But then the twitch turns into a kick, then a shimmy. And the kaiju is cutting through the water, wings tucked in and angled straight for the crevasse that hides the rift.

“Oh shit. That’s not good right?” Zack questions, looking around the cockpit at the rest of his team,

The rest shake their heads ‘no’ with enough force for the Jaeger to follow suit. They try to tilt forward, to adopt the human belly-down, legs kicking form of swimming, but they just sink at a slightly different angle, now.

So they watch as the bright flash in the distance re-absorbs Goldar and the sinking feeling becomes indistinguishable from the actual sinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow almost done already! Chapter 6 tomorrow :)
> 
> Comments & kudos are appreciated! Drop me a line on [tumblr](http://closetedboggart.tumblr.com/), too!


	6. Chapter 6

They shed the pilot’s armor as soon as possible, fluid spilling onto the mesh floor of the pilot’s locker room as technicians scramble to pick up the equipment behind them.

The silence in their heads— separate— is oppressive. There’s nothing to say between them because there’s _too much_ to say and words are suddenly so slow.

The technicians grin slyly at them as they herd the teens out of the locker room and into the engineering staging area. The air around them explodes with noise. They’re surrounded by people, most of them wearing jumpsuits but there’s a smattering of civilian clothing mixed in. Families with children huddling together. Even dull colored business suits stand out among the monotony of military dress.

Trini disappears first and they all recognize her younger brothers in the crowd. Although it takes an extra second to realize they aren’t waving at the rest of them. Just their sister.

“We’re one hundred percent going to need therapy.” Zack mutters,

“I’m pretty sure that’s one of the perks here,” Jason half-laughs,

Or maybe it’s a full laugh, but he’s still breathless and wide eyed, and it sounds a lot like a defense mechanism.

“Zachary!”

They all cringe. Even if they didn’t know Zack’s mother as they all do now, hearing an adult yelling across a noisy room is never a welcome sound for a teenager. Zack cringes and ducks his head in grim acceptance of his fate. He quickly disappears among the taller adults.

When Jason looks back, Kim and Billy have also melted into the crowd. He tries not to think about how their absence seems to leave holes in him. He finds himself wading through the crowd as well, mostly because the technicians practically pushed him down the few steps into the massive pit of humanity. At least here he doesn’t have to worry about his dad finding him and lecturing him about stealing military property. Or worse: congratulate him.

He’s halfway through suppressing a wave of bile when a touch at his elbow startles him.

“Good work, son,”

Jason nearly crawls out of his skin before he realizes that the voice is much too calm to be his father’s, and that he’s never been called ‘son’ outside of PPDC training drills.

“Thanks, I guess… uh, sir,” Jason stands a bit straighter, but he doesn’t know whether he should be saluting or not,

“With a trial run like that, I think it’s safe to say you’ve earned a place in the Ranger Corps. If you kids want it.” Zordon smiles kindly down at him,

Jason’s only response is some rapid blinking and hoping his jaw isn’t hanging open,

“Of course, that means moving onto the base so you can train full time.” the Marshal continues, “Normally it would be more of a big deal, but with a lot of the town needing a place to stay, I don’t think it will cause much of a stir.”

“Sounds good to us.” Trini shrugs.

When he turns, Jason finds the rest of the group has seemingly materialized behind him. Trini loops one arm around his shoulders and the other around Zack’s elbow. Billy excitedly grabs his and Kim’s hands. And just like that, Jason feels something slot back into place in his chest.

He nods to Zordon,

“Well then, welcome to the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, recruits.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Tomorrow morning I'm going to post the epilogue because this one is short and the epilogue is shorter and I feel bad :'D


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised: the epilogue.

What remains of Goldar floats away from her as _up_ and _down_ shift sharply.

Everything is too bright.

The beings crowd around her, simultaneously alien and the creators. They raise her up and place her in a tank meant to replicate earth’s atmosphere. She wonders how long it's been since she breathed air not from her helmet. She supposes it will only be longer until she breathes _fresh_ air again.

She notices the sounds then. The singing that permeates everything that she _remembers_ now.

The creators— calling them aliens is a bit too surreal— are scooping bits of Goldar out of whatever makes up their side of the breach. Wire or string or _veins_ tie the pieces together and she can feel a vague pulse in the back of her neck as they plug the kaiju’s secondary brain in with the rest. As if their attentions travel with the signal traveling between them, the creators swivel towards her. Their voices, a delicate counterpoint to whatever is making this dimension _sing_ , rise around her. She can’t tell if they’re addressing her or just talking about her.

Rita raises her hand and presses it against the glass, willing the creators to notice, to understand her.

She could help them.

She _would_ help them.

All she needed was more of their kaiju…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it :) I have a few ideas kicking around for a follow up, but so far it hasn't coalesced into a cohesive plot like this one has, so it might just be posted as drabbles here and there.
> 
> Feel free to hit me up about this dumb headcanon I came up with! I'm around on [tumblr](http://closetedboggart.tumblr.com/) if you want to chat there.
> 
> ETA: I just added this to the series that I'll post the future drabbles or whatever to, if you wanted to subscribe to that!


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